Second Time Visits

For many years now I have dislocated, relocated and colocated upon the whims of destiny and others. I did not always long for a home to call my own because I enjoyed being a visitor. There was freedom in knowing people without getting entwined with their lives in perpetuity. I left behind friends I thought I would never meet again.

Yet, time or over, I have circled back to the places from long ago, revived relationships from the antiquated past. Going away has never been quite as final as it first seems when "your taxi's coming with one beep of its horn,sidling to the curb like a hearse .." The coming back not as magical as in the imagination. Something about time disbalances the equation of harmony between us.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow - Derek Walcott

I remember the cities I have never seen
exactly. Silver-veined Venice, Leningrad
with its toffee-twisted minarets. Paris. Soon
the Impressionists will be making sunshine out of shade.
Oh! and the uncoiling cobra alleys of Hyderabad.
To have loved one horizon is insularity;
it blindfolds vision, it narrows experience.
The spirit is willing, but the mind is dirty.
The flesh wastes itself under crumb-sprinkled linens,
widening the Weltanschauung with magazines.
A world's outside the door, but how upsetting
to stand by your bags on a cold step as dawn
roses the brickwork and before you start regretting,
your taxi's coming with one beep of its horn,
sidling to the curb like a hearse -- so you get in.